A river of drugs on I-40

Some of the 1,018 pounds of marijuana confiscated at the Gallup Port of Entry is seen in this courtesy photo. Courtesy photo

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Phil Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — In the past two weeks, more than $3 million in pot has been seized at the Gallup Port of Entry on Interstate Highway 40.

Saturday Motor Transportation Police recovered $1.2 million worth of marijuana from a tractor-trailer truck hauling an aircraft engine.

The pot and the driver — a 31-year-old man from West Memphis, Ark. — are now in the custody of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The name of the driver was not disclosed in a news release issued Monday by New Mexico Department of Public Safety Communications Director Peter Olson.

Olson said the driver’s ill-prepared paperwork prompted a search of his cargo Saturday afternoon. There was an aircraft engine and four wooden crates on board. Inside the crates, police found 45 bundles totaling 1,018 pounds of pot wrapped in cellophane.

On April 2, Motor Transportation Police at the Port of Entry west of Gallup recovered $2 million worth of marijuana from a flat-bed commercial truck.

The driver, a 39-year-old Winter Haven, Fla., man was arrested during a routine inspection when a discrepancy in the driver’s paperwork prompted police to search his cargo — which consisted of aluminum building materials and three wooden crates. Inside the crates were 50 tightly-packed, cellophane-wrapped bundles of pot totaling 1,719 pounds when weighed together. The pot was bound for the east coast, according to Olson.

Reporter Phil Stake can be reached at philip.stake@gmail.com, or by calling (505) 863-6811 x223.